The Runnin’ Rebels won the 1990 national championship game against Duke by 30 points.

That’s all kinds of impressive, but it doesn’t stop Jerry Tarkanian from saying the following year’s Rebels were “the best team I ever had.”

Four of UNLV’s five starters from the championship team—forwards Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon and guards Anderson Hunt and Greg Anthony—returned, and George Ackles ably replaced center David Butler.

These Rebels scored 335 points in their first three games and spent the rest of the season undefeated. “That team didn’t have a close game all year,” Tarkanian says. “(Seven) points was the closest game we had. And we played everybody. We went on the road. We played Michigan State. We went to Louisville. We went to Arkansas.”

UNLV averaged 97.7 points and topped 110 on 11 occasions. The trip to Arkansas was the only game that resembled a test, and it was barely that. The Razorbacks were ranked No. 2 in the country, and UNLV went to Fayetteville and built a 23-point lead before Nolan Richardson’s Arkansas team rallied to make the final 112-105.

In the NCAA Tournament, UNLV beat Montana, Georgetown, Utah and Seton Hall to set up a rematch with Duke in the Final Four. This time, things didn’t go so well for the Rebels. The Blue Devils held Johnson to 13 points, Anthony fouled out with more than 3 minutes to go, and the Rebels botched their last possession. Duke stunned UNLV—and the country—with a 79-77 victory.

“Duke played real well, and we didn’t,” Tarkanian says.

For one day, at least, Duke was the better team, and Tarkanian’s best team fell just short of repeating as national champs.

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2. 1999 Duke 37-2, lost national title game

Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke teams have won four national titles, but none of those Blue Devils squads entered the NCAA Tournament with only one loss. The 1999 Duke team, which was led in scoring by Elton Brand (17.7 points per game) and Trajan Langdon (17.3), was so good that Corey Maggette, a dynamic 6-6 forward who has averaged 16.2 points per game in his 13-year NBA career, started only three games. The Blue Devils lost by two points to Cincinnati in late November, then not again until falling by three to a scrappy Connecticut team in the championship game.

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3. 2005 Illinois 37-2, lost national title game

The Fighting Illini made a legitimate run at an undefeated season—they won their first 29 games before losing by one at Ohio State—and entered the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 overall seed. Guards Luther Head (15.9 points, 3.8 assists per game), Dee Brown (13.3 points, 4.5 assists) and Deron Williams (12.5 points, 6.8 assists) set the tone on both ends of the floor, and big men James Augustine and Roger Powell provided enough offense in the post to keep opponents honest. After making an epic comeback against Arizona in the Elite Eight—they were down 15 with 4 minutes left—the Illini advanced to the championship game, where they lost to a North Carolina team loaded with NBA talent.

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4. 1985 Georgetown 35-3, lost national title game

This was the senior season of Patrick Ewing, one of the most dominant defensive players in the history of college basketball. The Hoyas, who had won the NCAA title in 1984, lost back-to-back games to St. John’s and Syracuse (by a total of three points) in late January but were otherwise perfect heading into the national championship game. There, though, they fell to an underdog Villanova team that played a nearly flawless game. The Big East rival Wildcats missed only six shots the entire contest.

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5. 1997 Kansas 34-2, lost in Sweet 16

The Jayhawks, who spent the final 15 weeks of the regular season ranked No. 1 in the AP poll, featured future top 10 NBA picks in Raef LaFrentz and Paul Pierce, as well as future longtime pros Jacque Vaughn and Scot Pollard. Kansas lost just once in the regular season—a double-overtime defeat at rival Missouri—but the Jayhawks were beaten in one of the most shocking Sweet 16 upsets ever. Arizona, a No. 4 seed, built a 13-point lead late in the second half and held on, then went on to stun two other No. 1 seeds in the Final Four and win the national championship.

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6. 2008 Memphis 38-2, lost national title game

If the Tigers had made even one of the four free throws they missed in the final 1:15 of the championship game, they wouldn’t be on this list. But they did miss, and Kansas came back to tie it with 2.1 seconds left in regulation. The Jayhawks then won in overtime. Junior Chris Douglas-Roberts led the Tigers—who were 26-0 until falling to Tennessee in late February—at 18.1 points per game, and future No. 1 overall pick Derrick Rose added 14.9 points and 4.7 assists. The 38 wins in a season set the NCAA record, but Memphis was forced to vacate them because it was ruled it had used an ineligible player.

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7. 2000 Cincinnati 29-4, lost in the second round

This is one of the all-time what-might-have-beens. The Bearcats, led by coach Bob Huggins, had spent the majority of the season ranked No. 1. But 3 minutes into their first Conference USA Tournament game, against Saint Louis, star forward Kenyon Martin—who was averaging 18.9 points, 9.7 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game—broke his leg. An obviously stunned group of Bearcats lost that game, to a team Cincinnati had beaten by 43 just five days earlier, then fell as a No. 2 seed to No. 7 seed Tulsa in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

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8. 1993 Michigan 31-5, lost national title game

In Year 2 for the Fab Five, Chris Webber, Jalen Rose and company rolled into the national championship game—for the second consecutive year—riding a 12-game winning streak. The Wolverines trailed North Carolina by two points in the final 11 seconds when Webber called his infamous timeout, resulting in a technical foul that left this group just short yet again of a championship. The Wolverines were later forced to vacate the victories because of NCAA rules violations.

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9. 1987 UNLV 37-2, lost in the Final Four

The Runnin’ Rebels spent 12 weeks atop the rankings largely because of big man Armen Gilliam, who averaged 23.2 points and 9.3 rebounds on the season. UNLV’s only regular-season loss was by one point, on the road at Oklahoma. But then it lost to eventual national champion Indiana, 97-93, in the national semifinals despite two Final Four-record-breaking performances: 18 assists from Mark Wade and 10 3-pointers from “Fearless” Freddie Banks.

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10. 1998 North Carolina 34-4, lost in the Final Four

The Tar Heels featured three of the most exciting players in college basketball in Antawn Jamison (22.2 points per game), Shammond Williams (16.8 points) and Vince Carter (15.6 points). North Carolina rolled out to a 26-1 record before losing two of its final three regular-season games, but the Tar Heels recovered to sweep through the ACC Tournament and into the Final Four before falling to Utah.